6 Actresses Speak Out on Sexism and Ageism in Hollywood

Jane Fonda, Patricia Arquette, and Jennifer Aniston share their experiences.

By Estelle TangPublished: Sep 30, 2016

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This week there was a small change in the entertainment world that we hope heralds a bigger paradigm shift. A bill was passed in California requiring websites like IMDb Pro to remove an actor's age from the site if requested. Age discrimination is a huge problem in Hollywood—particularly for actresses, whose opportunities and wages begin decreasing as early as their thirties.

You're the Worst actress Aya Cash tweeted the news, decrying the "cuckoo ageism" she's experienced throughout her acting career. Cash challenged the media to do their part: "Your turn reporters. Stop listing ages in articles. I'm not ashamed of my age but of how it's used against me." The actress acknowledged, in an exchange with writer Jessica Valenti, that the issue was "more complicated" than simply removing age from the conversation: "There's a part of me that wants to 'be the change' and shout it from the rooftops but it really has affected my casting and it's maddening."

Here is what five other actresses, including Jane Fonda, Jennifer Aniston, and Patricia Arquette, had to say on ageism in Hollywood.

Patricia Arquette

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On the way her changing appearance in Boyhood was discussed: "I've had so many of these conversations in my life…what I look like on film, what I don't look like on film—what are we supposed to look like? Men are not having these conversations."

On being tired of talking about aging as a woman in Hollywood: "Yes, the next step would be to not have to talk about it. I'd love to not have to talk about it anymore. I don't think men are talking about it at all. Aging is just normal! That is all there is to it.... It's pathetic, and it looks pathetic, when I hear some 55-year-old actor won't play opposite a 42-year-old woman because she is too old for him. People aren't buying this anymore."

Lily Tomlin

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On whether she expected to land a leading TV role at this point in her career: "No! I didn't. I never thought about it in terms of rejecting or accepting the possibility, but no, I don't think I did…. I thought I might get another series, but I didn't know what it would be and if it would be meaningful. I didn't think I was going to be without employment. But I didn't think I'd have a series and certainly not one on Netflix."

On why there are so few shows on TV about people over the age of 40: "There are a lot of shows on HBO and Netflix and Showtime that deal with an older demographic. Maybe not older, but they are certainly more egalitarian in terms of dealing with people who are professionals in their forties and fifties…. So I think there's a lot more attention being paid to deeper, more serious subjects with older protagonists. But I think we're the only show totally devoted to the issue of aging and those complications."

Jennifer Aniston

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Jennifer Aniston, in an interview with Bobbi Brown: "There is this pressure in Hollywood to be ageless. I think what I have been witness to is seeing women trying to to stay ageless with what they are doing to themselves. I am grateful to learn from their mistakes, because I am not injecting shit into my face…. I see them and my heart breaks. I think, Oh God, if you only know how much older you look. They are trying to stop the clock, and all you can see is an insecure person who won't let themselves just age."

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Jane Fonda

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On her plastic surgery: "I wish I was brave enough to let it all hang out, but I'm not. It wasn't so much that I wanted to look young—I was tired of always catching myself in a window and looking like I was exhausted when I felt fine!"

On societal attitudes toward aging: "We're living 30 years longer than our grandparents did, but until recently, we've been stuck on the old paradigm that age is pathology, age is disease."

Pamela Adlon

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On being a single mother and actress in her forties: "I realized that men kind of stopped looking at me. You cross into a universe where you're like, Oh my God, there's no guys. Where are they? Well, it stops when you stop being a younger person. Raising a family, you don't get an opportunity to meet men, and the jobs start drying up for you when you hit a point. It's like your sell-by date. Ding! That's what my aunt always says: 'Well, I've passed my sell-by date. I've passed it, darling.' Me and my friends, we literally could rob a liquor store or a bank and nobody would notice because we're kind of neither here nor there. When you're in your forties or fifties and you're not single, the men your age are going for 25-year-olds."